• Andean Geotrail Blog (In English)
  
• Fat Cyclist
  
• Our Long Haul Honeymoon
  
• The Andean Geotrail
  
• The Andean Geotrail Blog (In French)
  
• Up In Alaska
  
• Walking the Andes (In French)
  
• Ze Movers (In French)
  

...and finishing strong

By Mike Beris - 2009-06-21

“There’s something wrong with my rack,” I said.

A few hundred meters back, I had felt the weight on the bike shift slightly. By the time I caught up with Chris and the Swiss cyclist who had been riding with us for a few days, I knew that this problem was probably no small deal. We unloaded the bike and practically gasped at what we saw: my poor rear rack had broken not in one spot, but three!

And that wasn’t all: one of the eyelets on the bicycle frame, to which the rack was attached, had broken as well! The bulk of my equipment was now attached to my bike with one measly bolt.

There was no simple fix, no MacGyver trick that would hold the rack on the bike for the remaining 300 kilometers to Calama. I was done.

So what could we do? Not an hour before, we had scooped up a celebratory tin of desert dirt to commemorate being so high in altitude and far from civilization, in the driest desert in the world.

But suddenly, what was worthy of celebrating had become a liability. My bike was able to be ridden, but I couldn’t leave all my gear behind.

The answer was more simple than I’m making it out to be. Hitchhiking! We had shared Ruta Cinco with a lot of guys who know what it means to spend days and nights in the desert, and we had a kind of understanding with them.

The truckers almost always gave us a lane to ourselves, and it would be easier to count the times they didn’t give us a friendly honk as they drove by. But this was something new; would they be as friendly when our thumbs were out?

Our Swiss friend, Sergio, jumped into action. He threw on his yellow safety vest and stood firm in the lane of oncoming traffic. I flipped my bike upside down to communicate our problem. Before four trucks had passed, we were loading three bikes, twelve panniers, and tents and sleeping bags behind the cab and on the bed behind the driver’s seat.

We watched the sunset through a shiny clean windshield, and listened to Carlos as he talked about missing out on his second grandbaby’s birth last week. He’ll get four days off for his birthday weekend, the first break in 35 days, when he’ll finally get to learn the baby’s name.

Carlos seemed to like the company we provided for a few hours, but he could only take us about halfway to Calama. We stopped at a gas station and decided to spend the night behind a wall. The next morning, Sergio leapt back into action, going up to every truck driver in sight to find out who was going to Calama. We whipped up a sign to help our case, written with, what else? chain grease from my bike’s rear derailleur.

A driver told us he had just enough space on his trailer for our gear. A quick call to his boss made our hitch “okay,” but he had to wait for him to show up with a check to pay for the gas. This is when we were reminded of Latin American timing: “I’ll be right there,” turned into a two-and-a-half hour wait.

Once we had our gear on the back and gas in the tank, we made up time, flying toward Calama. But Julio was taking a turn off the main road to deliver scaffolding to a small copper mine. He dumped us off in a tiny town, practically a speed bump, a narrowing of the road with tired-looking restaurants on either side. Sergio thought we’d fair better after some food. The lady running the restaurant gave us some priceless advice once the meal was done: stick the thumbs out at the railroad tracks, two blocks up the street, where every truck has to stop anyway.

Minutes later, our little Swiss friend was back in his reflective vest, back in the street, fast-talking our sad story to the first driver who came along. Yes! A few square feet on the back of the flat-bed trailer allowed the gear to be lashed down, and we were just another hour from our destination.

Raul drove for the railroad and had a final destination of Calama, where he parked the truck, walked us to the street we needed, and ducked into one of the many holes in the walls for a bite to eat. Chris, Sergio, and I found our way to the church and finally reunited with Dan and Daniel. Our desert trek hadn’t ended the way we planned, but we had made it in time to visit with Gabe, and were no worse for the wear.